Category Archives: NOTD

While on a quick lunch time scout yesterday, some Essence polishes caught my eye and seeing as they were only €1.29 each I picked up the three below:

L-R: 67 Make It Golden, 76 Blue Addicted, 72 Time for Romance

These are all from the Colour & Go collection, Essence’s range of quick drying nail polishes.

I decided to give the gold shade a whirl first:﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

Essence Make It Golden

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Deborah Lippmann Boom Boom Pow

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They certainly look similar to those from the Deborah Lippman collection which retail at a much higher price and can be hard to come by. For example, Make It Golden could be compared to Boom Boom Pow, Blue Addicted is quite similar to the very popular Across The Universe while Time for Romance could be a dupe for Ruby Red Slippers.

I didn’t apply a colour underneath as I wanted to see what it is like alone and how the coverage is so here you go – this is how my nails look after three coats:

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Thankfully this polish is quick drying as I think you definitely need three coats to build up the effect. However, I do think it would benefit from a base coat of something similar to Dior Vernis Haute Coleur Extreme Wear Nail Lacquer in Or Divin which Kirstie reviewed today over on Beaut.ie.

Another bargain I picked up last week was Catrice Ultimate Nail Lacquer in shade 160 Sweets for my Sweet. After applying CND Stickey base coat, I added two coats of the nail lacquer and as you can see from the images below, it was still quite transparent:

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So I persevered and added a third coat:

I’ve been wanting a try some bling on my nails so I decided to add a layer of Nails Inc Shelton Street, a glitter polish containing tiny particles of gold, silver and brown glitter. Topped off with my favourite quick drying top coat, Seche Vite and tada, here’s the result:

Technically it’s not a NOTD post as I had it done last Thursday but I’m sure you’ll forgive me!After work on Thursday, I headed to Fifth Avenue, Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork to redeem a Citydeal voucher I purchased a few months ago. The voucher was €18 and entitled me to a “Pamper Experience including Eyebrow Tint, French Manicure and Mini French Pedicure” and I was really looking forward to relaxing for an hour or so.

I had checked out the salon’s website before purchasing the deal and thought it looked great, however, there are a lot more stations packed into the salon than are shown in the photos on the site.

I was greeted by a friendly lady who led me to the back of the salon where three pedicure chairs were crammed into a pretty tight area – the two other chairs were occupied by ladies reading magazines so I hopped up onto the closest one and the therapist took my bags. I immersed by feet in very hot water and she proceeded to clip my toenails, all fine until she took my right foot to buff my nails but instead buffed the skin and cuticle around my big toe vigourously until it started to bleed – I yanked my foot away and she just grabbed it and continued. She then took my left foot and believe it or not, managed to do the exact same thing to the second toe – I was pretty annoyed at this stage and it became obvious that she was being careless and rushing to get me out of there. At this stage, the three therapists were all talking between themselves in another language which made me feel slightly paranoid!! She then French manicured my toes using CND Stickey base coat, Essence tip painted, an Essie pink and top coat – must say, she did a great job!

There is a spiral stairs behind the pedicure area which leads up to a treatment room – anytime any client or therapist wanted to get to the stairs, they had to squeeze past each pedicure station, bumping off the therapist’s chairs – not great space planning. I was asked if I wanted to have my brows tinted or not, I guessed that a lot of clients didn’t avail of this aspect of the deal and I opted not to either as I don’t normally tint my brows. Flip flops were then placed on my feet and as she led me to the manicure area, she did apologise briefly for cutting my skin.

So far, not a very pampering experience!

I took a seat and the therapist asked what shaped I’d like my nails and began to file them – my nails are quite short at the moment but I was very happy with the results, photo below:

My French Manicure

I was told to wait for 10 – 15 minutes before putting on my sandals to leave and then the therapist bid me goodbye and headed for home.

My nails were perfect on Friday but by yesterday morning, they had chipped quite badly:

Day 2 – chipped

Overall, I was happy with the results of both the manicure and pedicure, minus the cuts of course but I really don’t think I’ll be returning to Fifth Avenue as it was a bit like an assembly line and I certainly wasn’t made feel special or pampered in any way. Glad I only paid €18 for the experience!